All licences and assets of unit 2 of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania will be transferred to a subsidiary of EnergySolutions under an agreement signed yesterday by US utility FirstEnergy and EnergySolutions. The reactor, which suffered a partial meltdown in 1979 and never reopened, will then be decommissioned.

EDF subsidiary Cyclife Sweden AB has signed an eight-year contract with Uniper for the treatment and recycling of contaminated metal generated through the decommissioning of Oskarshamn 1 and 2 and Barsebäck 1 and 2. Uniper has a common strategy for dismantling and demolishing the units, which were shut down between 1999 and 2017.

While the UK nuclear industry met the required safety and security standards last year, there remains room for improvement, the country's Chief Nuclear Inspector Mark Foy said today in his first annual report on the sector's performance. He said three key areas of focus are the management of ageing facilities, conventional health and safety, and delivering a holistic approach to nuclear security.

Half of the last remaining radioactive fuel elements inside the Dounreay Fast Reactor have now been removed, Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd has announced. The elements had been jammed inside the reactor, and their removal has been a top priority for its decommissioning.

Centrus Energy Corp has completed decontamination and decommissioning of the US Department of Energy’s K-1600 facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, one year after being awarded the contract to prepare the facility for demolition. K-1600 is one of the last remaining legacy structures on the East Tennessee Technology Park site.

US Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management contractors have used new techniques, including the use of a diamond wire saw, in a collaborative effort to demolish a legacy research reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory.

France's Orano Group recently signed a cooperation agreement with Japanese utility Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) to strengthen their cooperation on the decommissioning of nuclear facilities at the Fukushima Daiichi site.

Ownership of Italy's Ispra-1 research reactor has officially been transferred to Societa Gestione Impianti Nucleari SpA (Sogin), the state-owned company responsible for dismantling the country's nuclear power plants. Decommissioning of the reactor, which ceased operation in 1973, will begin once Sogin's application has been approved.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has marked the tenth anniversary of its Network on Environmental Remediation and Management (ENVIRONET) initiative by showcasing projects it has supported, lessons learned and plans to ensure future activities inside and outside the fuel cycle benefit from an integrated approach to remediation.

French utility EDF has applied to shut down Fessenheim unit 1 on 22 February and unit 2 on 30 June next year. The announcement confirms last week's statement from Secretary of State for Ecological and Solidarity Transition Emmanuelle Wargon that France's oldest nuclear power plant would close by mid-2020.

The dismantling and decommissioning business has a promising part to play in the future of the nuclear power industry as it now demonstrates to the public that a nuclear asset can be permanently withdrawn from service in a safe, sustainable, timely and cost-effective manner, writes Philippe Knoche, CEO of Orano.

Ahead of its decommissioning, the low-enriched uranium fuel has been removed from the Saskatchewan Research Council's Slowpoke-2 research reactor in Saskatoon and transported to the USA.